


mercy for the soil

by merelyans



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Funeral Home Husbands, Funeral Parlor AU???, Gravedigger Bokuto, It's a lot happier than it looks I promise, M/M, fluff??, how many times can I say soil before it loses meaning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-15
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-16 16:55:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29457105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merelyans/pseuds/merelyans
Summary: Koutarou finds peace and beauty in being surrounded by death.
Relationships: Akaashi Keiji/Bokuto Koutarou
Comments: 6
Kudos: 12





	mercy for the soil

He digs.

Day in, day out, he digs, sticking that rusty shovel into the soft ground, into the plump flesh of the earth. It’s rich, brown like dark chocolate, fruit of the dried and fermented and the bitter. Dark like ground coffee, soil so deep and damp it clumps together like it’s trying to rejoin itself, calling back to its forgotten mother.

It sticks to his skin, his hair, and the more he digs, the dirtier it gets, the bigger the pile grows, the mountain of dust, dirt, and decay unpeeling layers of history with every roll of his shoulders. It’s streaks of mud and crumbling sod, bits and pieces of grass brushed off as he hollows out a small portion of profit-designated peace.

Another roll of his shoulders, a heavy fistful, a line drawn in the silt like a painting no one dares create. His own creation, a mark, something made to be filled and undone, with only a mound and a weathered stone left to show for it. Sandy brown sprinkled among his tied back black and white hair, he shakes the excess out and continues, picking up every grain he’s since added to his work.

It’s hot. 

It’s hot as he digs. When he was younger, maybe when was a few inches shorter, a little bit dumber, a little less in love, he would have said he loved the cold. Loved how he could stick his fingers into the pristine snow, ball it up between his fingers, feel the wetness start to soak in his damp gloves, and watch as it flies through the air, hitting its target without fail. 

Soil is the same, the way it clumps, the way it dampens in the rain, the way it soaks his pant legs and dirties his socks so much he can’t remember what color they were when they were new. And like snow, soil is unforgiving, cold in the winter, hard and solid, frozen as if the earth’s abandoned its children, closed itself off so that no one may witness the decay it brings, so that the surface can feast.

But he digs. 

He digs into the silt, the soil, the bits of sod he pays too much for just to keep things prim and proper and beautiful. But it’s worth it, it’s worth the lost pennies, the dull ache of his shoulders at the end of the day, the soft hands that the ache warrants to slowly work over his skin in the dead of night.

He loves those soft hands, would do anything for the man attached to them, would dig a thousand holes and then some just to keep him fed, keep him happy. He’s worth it, worth the dull ache, worth the physical labor and the cold winters, worth digging through layers of ice and worth the heated sunburns and worth the awful tans.

“Hey,” Keiji leans on the headstone, brushing off the stray silt, making sure that the name is still legible for the upcoming burial. “Lunchtime, Kou.”

Koutarou jumps a little at the sudden sound, rips off his headphones, looks up and digs his shovel into the ground, leaning his weight onto it as it sinks further down. “Already?”

“Matsukawa took the client to the embalming room, so I got off a little early,” He holds up a brown paper bag. “Thought I’d sneak into the staff room and make you something for all your hard work.”

Keiji holds the bag out and Koutarou takes it, bringing out one of the napkin-wrapped sandwiches and peeling back the paper, not really caring about the excess particles that might fall in. He’s eaten his fair share of dirt over the past few years, and it barely has a taste anymore. Tastes like a hard day of work, or the clay he used to eat as a child.

He sits on the edge of the forming rectangle, still shallow enough to rest his feet flatly on the sloping ground. Keiji takes the bag into his own hands and takes out the other sandwich, opting to stand alongside the pit instead of on the marker. Just out of respect, really, as Koutarou learned all those years ago when he joined his husband’s business. Koutarou’s never had an issue leaning on the headstones while he talks, using them as makeshift backrests during his breaks. These stones don’t mean the same thing to him as they do to Keiji, but then again, seeing them from a window rather up close like this shifts reality.

He knows these names, sees them so often that they no longer mean anything to him as a whole, even if each individual one means everything to someone else. He used to wonder the meaning behind them, staring into the void of his own mortality in the questions of who they were, who they loved. But a series of numbers, the quick math of figuring out an age, it’s never told much of a story. Not as much as the files that Keiji gets of their lives, of their circumstances towards the end.

But then again, Keiji started seeing files the same time Koutarou started seeing stones, and over time they both started finding meaning in the number sheets, dates, and whispers of “they must have really loved them” after meetings with the families.

Koutarou doesn’t know the people he digs for. He only knows their loved ones, knows what they were, knows what they did, knows that they were loved. Everyone resting on the greens of their property was loved, is loved, some of them older than all of the workers’ ages combined, some young enough to create a swell deep in Koutarou’s heart. But Koutarou makes sure everyone sparkles in the sun, makes sure the flowers Keiji lays out get out to the right plot, makes sure that everyone is shown the equal amount of love and care while their loved ones are away.

He makes sure that he addresses everyone by name as he gifts them with their flowers, even if he has to pull a few from the front desk for the lonely ones when Keiji isn’t looking, asks them how they’re doing when he scrubs their headstones clean. Kuroo makes fun of him for it, says that they can’t hear him, says that he’s been spending too much time out in the greenery and not enough time inside with Keiji like a co-owner should, but everyone knows that Koutarou wouldn’t have it any other way.

He could go over files, tell the family and friends how sorry he is, tell them how they’ll take good care of their loved one. He could get smocked up and stare at their provided photo for hours while he brings them back to how they were with a cart full of makeup, but in the end, that’s not all he can do for them. Keiji can do that. Matsukawa can do that. Kuroo can do that. 

Koutarou cares in a different way.

There’s care in the flowers, in making sure the names are legible, in mowing the lawn and cleaning off the sitting areas so that visitors can also feel at peace. And there’s definitely peace in the way the sunbeams cascade through the tree branches, soaking into the warm earth. There’s beauty and peace behind his husband, making the pale rosiness of his cheeks and the brilliant blue of his eyes stand out that much more.

He bites into his sandwich and smiles up at Keiji.

“You’re so beautiful,” He muses, and Keiji can’t help but blush and look away, staring out over the greenery, taking in the bright spots of yellow and pink, blips of red and purple that dot the shaded sea of greys and browns.

His lip quivers until he smiles something small and fond.

“You’re so weird, Koutarou,” He gently hits his fist against Koutarou’s head. “You’re doing good work today, I think you can come inside if you want to take a break. We can send Iwa and Daichi out later to finish up the job.”

“Nah,” Koutarou shakes his head, shoving the rest of his sandwich into his mouth and giving the napkin back to Keiji. He jumps back into the hole, smacking his hands together as he lifts his headphones up to his ears and takes the shovel back into his hands. “I think I’ll work for a little longer. It’s quite nice out, isn’t it?”

Keiji ruffles his hair and winces at the sweat that comes off on his hand, reminding him, like he always does, that his shoulders are going to hurt in the morning. Koutarou laughs as Keiji walks off, satisfied with his visit, and says that Keiji will just have to work out the knots for him like usual.

Alone again, he sinks his shovel into the loose earth and starts to dig, humming happily to himself as he works.


End file.
